Til pitha

Til Pitha, also called Tilor Pitha, is an Assamese Bihu sweet made from a ground glutinous-rice wrapper around sesame and jaggery. Sunita Bhuyan presents it as a food she learned to make alongside her mother in Assam, in north-east India.

Her filling uses black sesame seeds, jaggery shavings and fennel seeds. The sesame is roasted over low heat and ground coarsely, then mixed with jaggery and fennel; the filling is allowed to cool before shaping.

The glutinous rice is washed, soaked and drained until still damp but no longer dripping. It is ground in small batches, pressed down in a bowl as each batch is added and refrigerated before the pithas are made.

The ground rice is sifted through a sieve onto a heavy iron pan to form an oval and gently pressed with the fingertips. Filling is placed across the middle, and the wrapper is rolled from a long edge when it begins lifting from the pan.

Each roll is moved to the edge of the pan to crisp while the next one is formed. It is turned and transferred to a paper-lined dish once crisp, giving a delicate rice casing around the sweet sesame filling.